ONE-ON-ONE WITH TATUAJE'S PETE JOHNSON, part 1

Los Angeles, September 2, 2010 – On a nondescript block of Sunset Boulevard in midtown Los Angeles sits a storefront where the front door is usually not only closed, but locked. But behind that door is the headquarters of Tatuaje Cigars, one of the hottest boutique brands in America.

But looking back at the cigar trade in 2003, there was nothing in the air that would project Pete Johnson and his Tatuaje brand to the near-cult status it enjoys today. At the time, Johnson was running the retail arm of the Grand Havana Room in Beverly Hills, operating the club’s tiny cigar-selling storefront on Canon Drive, while the lounge itself was upstairs.

Armed with an idea and finding, almost by accident, a recent U.S. immigrant from Cuba (via Nicaragua) named Pepin Garcia who was willing to create a new blend for him, Johnson created Tatuaje in 2003 and was able to place it with some friends who were also fellow retailers across the country. "My friends took a chance," he said during a relaxed interview at his office/warehouse. "They knew me, and they believed that I kind of new a little bit about what I was doing, and I said, 'let’s try it.'

Soon enough the cigars began selling thanks to their rich, full flavor, Johnson's own unique story - the name "Tatuaje" means "tattoo" in Spanish and Johnson has plenty of them - and strong word of mouth and published ratings. The brand and Johnson both ascended to near-cult status among smokers nationwide. "It’s kind of weird,” he said. "I don’t know how to explain it. Just the word of mouth on the Internet has been really helpful: Twitter, Facebook, all that stuff. It puts my brands into people's faces, but I think the secret of my success is that I don't go in [to stores] to sell them cigars. I go there in to hang out with them."

All that hanging-out has created a frenzy for many of Johnson's blends, including his annual Halloween edition, with the third year's blend getting ready to ship. As usual, he is preparing 666 coffin-style boxes of 13, but in a new style and with a twist to help retailers.

"This year is 'The Face.' It’s a 6 3/8 by 56; the reason why it's this size is because Gunnar Hansen who played Leatherface [in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre] was 6-foot-4, so I figured 6 3/8 works, right? And a 56 ring gauge because he was kind of on the heavier side." It's the first time that Johnson has strayed from the classic Universal Pictures horror characters of the 1930s since his first two editions were "The Frank" and "The Drac" and picked a more contemporary horror character.

And Johnson (pictured with The Face below) explained that the cigar itself is somewhat horrific ... in its own way. "It has a Mexican wrapper. We don't use a high priming; it's a Seco leaf, so the shade is more like Café Rosado color. But gnarly-looking! The crazy thing about Mexican wrapper is that when it's drying out, it's almost like the oil pockets [in the leaf] explode . . . and turn white. When we went through the production, a few thousand sticks had these white spots all over them; those cigars look perfect for The Face, but Jaime and Pepin don't want to put them out on the streets. I liked it, because I thought it fit perfectly for Leatherface, but they re-wrapped a bunch of them. But I told them to keep some of the ugly ones, because I liked it.

"The Mexican wrapper gives it a little sweetness, but also on the cigar, instead of putting a band, we decided to put a little piece of torn tobacco as the band.

"They're in boxes of 13, the cigars are uncellophaned, and wrapped in brown paper with burlap around the bundle, real gnarly-looking. We're doing 666 of those coffins, Last year we did the whole Actor's Series; I killed it for now. I thought about bringing back the Actor's Series for Academy Awards; that kind of made sense, but I am not sure I’m going to bring 'Bela' out in March."

Johnson noted that his distribution plan for this very limited edition has been a real headache in the past. "There were some guys who only wanted to smoke the cigars. They didn't want the fancy box, they just wanted the cigars. So we'll have 1,300 boxes of 10, very plain boxes that just say 'Tatuaje Halloween 2010 No. 3' and those are boxes of 10 with cellophane, individually. So for the guys who just wanted to smoke the cigar, they can buy them on the shelf the week of Halloween. But the fancy boxes will be released before the 13th of October.

"It became this thing over the past two years; everybody wanted to smoke them on Halloween. That's kind of cool, but that means I have to have them on the streets before Halloween. But this is good. The guys who like to scramble to get the fancy box will be calling the 13 retailers [who will get most of the 666-box production] on the 13th and 130 of my top retailers will get a piece of the 1,300 boxes, depending on their volume of what they've done with us. Those retailers will also get one or two of the fancy boxes. That way they can have the fancy box on display in their store, but they can still sell the singles.

"A lot of these guys have used them in the past to raise money for charity, which is kind of cool. If this version of the distribution doesn't work, I think I'm going to quit [doing the Halloween Series], because last year I thought I made too many cigars and [when they sold out immediately], it was a nightmare."

Johnson hopes for no more distribution nightmares this year, but he's keenly aware of the disappointment some of his fans face when they can't get ahold on one of his specialty blends. In part 2 of our interview, he'll unveil a sensational new program for fans who have to be the first to try his latest concepts.
~ Rich Perelman